Great Recession & Slow Recovery

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

• Student explored data on both FRED and World Bank Data

• Student picked relevant variables, explained it correctly

• Cogent international comparisons of the great recession

The Bad:

• Great interactive tools made for poor visualizations (at least default values)

• Time consuming to reproduce - Return to website, download image, etc.

The Ugly:

• Inconsistent style across FRED and World Bank Data

• Very difficult to see much of the text

Introduction

• Created an R package, ecodata, to facilitate visualizing data in undergraduate macroeconomics courses

• Wrapper for the fredr, wbstats, and ggplot2 packages

• Makes it easy to:

  • Download data from the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) and World Bank databases

  • Produce professional-quality data visualizations

  • View descriptions of the data

  • Cite sources

• Do everything with 3-4 lines of code

Example: Fetch the Data

# Load the library
library(ecodata)
library(tidyverse)

# Identify what variables I want
# Includes both FRED and World Bank Data sources
variable_sources <- c(
  "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE",
  "https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AURUKM",
  "https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG?locations=US",
  "https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/FP.CPI.TOTL.ZG?locations=GB"
)

# Fetch the data 
mydata <- get_ecodata(variable_sources)

# Get only Great Recession + Recovery
mydata <- mydata |>
  filter(Date >= "2007-01-01" & Date <= "2016-12-31")

Example: Plot the Data

ggplot_ecodata_facet(mydata, ncol = 2, title = "Unemployment and Inflation in U.S. and U.K.") +
  geom_recession()

Example: Data Description

ecodata_description_table(mydata)

Why Scripting Languages?

Why Avoid Scripting Languages?

ECODATA Package

• Gentle learning curve!

• Easy to do easy things

• Use simple reproducible code to analyze macroeconomics principles

Why ECODATA for Principles of Macroeconomics?

• Data visualization is a key skill for everyone

• Early introduction makes subsequent classes easier

• Data is used throughout the economics discipline, it should be used throughout economics curriculum

• Repeated practice throughout undergraduate degree builds mastery

• ECODATA package is easy to learn, easy to use for easy things

Best Practices for Principles-Level

• Show students worked-out examples - See my vignettes!

• Use prompts that require only 3-4 lines of code

• Make economics real: Compare theoretical predictions with recent data

Example

1. Plot the U.S. unemployment rate from 2006-2016

2. Describe the behavior of the unemployment rate before, during, and years after the recession. What do you notice about economic recoveries?

3. Plot the U.S. unemployment rate along with Wisconin’s and California’s. What do you notice about the differences in the unemployment rates between these states?